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java.net Spotlight

Simplify your development with the new NetBeans IDE 6.5. Sun's award-winning open source IDE enables Java developers to rapidly create and debug web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications. Supported by a vibrant developer community and offering a diverse selection of third-party plugins, the NetBeans IDE is a must-download for developers. For more information, check out NetBeans 6.5's features, tutorials and documentation, and a guided video tour.

Sun is sponsoring a contest for independent developers and students working with Project Darkstar, the Java-based MMO gaming back-end engine. The Project Darkstar Developer Challenge is looking for the best applications and utilities for Project Darkstar and offers some enticing awards. Grand prize winners get a 2009 Game Developer Conference (GDC) pass and an opportunity to show their work in a GDC presentation, plus cash for travel and a feature on the Project Darkstar site. Entrants must be members of the Project Darkstar community, and must submit their entries between November 17, 2008 and January 19, 2009.

The Election Ballot is now available for registered Java Community Process members to vote in the JCP 2008 Election. This year, there are two seats open on the SE/EE Executive Committee, and two seats available for the ME Executive Committee. Candidates for the SE/EE EC are Intel Corp., Werner Kiel, Matthew McCullough, and Shashank Tiwari. On the ME EC, the candidates are Aplix Corporation, Sean Sheedy, and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. Each JCP member has two votes for each committee, which can be cast for two candidates, or for the same candidate twice (the member can also abstain from voting on either EC altogether). Balloting ends Monday, November 17.

The GlassFish project has released GlassFish v3 Prelude, a major release en route to GlassFish v3, which will implement the in-the-works Java EE 6 (JSR 316). "GlassFish v3 Prelude is a lightweight Web 2.0 development and deployment platform built on a modular OSGi-based architecture. Developers can benefit from a dynamically extensible and embeddable platform with support for existing Java Web technologies, JRuby, and Groovy." The Aquarium Online will be hosting a series of GlassFish v3 Preulde seminars on Thursday, November 6.

The Open Nominations phase of the 2008 JCP elections is now underway. There is one seat on the SE/EE Executive Committee and two seats on the ME EC up for this year's election. All Java Community Process Members who have signed the JSPA 2 are eligible to nominate themselves. Self nominations will be open from October 21, 2008 through October 31, 2008. Then, from November 4, 2008 - November 17, 2008, members will be asked to vote for their top choices for each EC.

The newly-released Java ME Platform SDK "is a state-of-the-art toolbox for developing mobile applications. It integrates CLDC, CDC and Blu-ray Disc Java (BD-J) technology into one SDK. Java ME SDK 3.0 is the successor to the popular Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2 and Java Toolkit 1.0 for CDC. It provides device emulation, a standalone development environment and a set of utilities for rapid development of Java ME applications."

Registration is now open for the Mobile, Media, and Embedded Developer Days (M3DDs) conference, being held January 21-22, 2009 at the Sun Santa Clara Campus Auditorium. "This conference is devoted solely to the technologies of mobile, media, and embedded Java platforms and is a unique opportunity for content developers of intermediate and advanced skill levels, platform developers, and technical experts at product companies, device manufacturers, and service providers to get introduced to open source Java ME, the community, and to join in and collaborate." As co-organizer Roger Brinkley points out in his blog, $175 Early Bird Registration is now open and will be available through November 14. Roger's blog also contains an initial list of pre-selected technical sessions and lightning talks.

This week's Ask The Experts session is on OpenSSO. "The OpenSSO project is designed to provide an open and extensible identity services infrastructure that simplifies the deployment of transparent single sign-on (SSO) as a security component in a network environment. The project is the open source counterpart of OpenSSO Enterprise 8.0 (formerly Sun Access Manager), Sun's premier access management, identity federation, and web services solution. Got a question about OpenSSO? Post it during this session and get answers from four key members of Sun's identity and access management team: Rajeev Angal, Aravindan Ranganathan, Dilli Dorai, and Qingwen Cheng."

Sun is sponsoring a contest for independent developers and students working with Project Darkstar, the Java-based MMO gaming back-end engine. The Project Darkstar Developer Challenge is looking for the best applications and utilities for Project Darkstar and offers some enticing awards. Grand prize winners get a 2009 Game Developer Conference (GDC) pass and an opportunity to show their work in a GDC presentation, plus cash for travel and a feature on the Project Darkstar site. Entrants must be members of the Project Darkstar community, and must submit their entries between November 17, 2008 and January 19, 2009.

The java.net Education Community has re-launched at https://edu-gelc.dev.java.net/. The site is aimed at "students, educators, developers, parents, and anyone else interested in tools or curriculum for teaching Information and Communication Technology," with separate starting points for students, educators, and developers.

The second Java Mobile, Media & Embedded Developer Days will be held January 20-21, 2009 (updated with new date) at Sun's Santa Clara Campus Auditorium. "This conference is devoted solely to the technologies of mobile and embedded Java platforms and will be a unique opportunity for application developers of intermediate and advanced skill levels, platform developers, and technical experts at tool vendors, OEMs and carriers to get introduced to the community, to join in and collaborate." The Call for Papers, announced in Roger Brinkley's blog, is underway now and will end September 30.

This week's Ask The Experts session focuses on the JavaFX Preview release. "The JavaFX family of products includes the tools and platform SDK for developers, web scripters, and designers to create dynamic applications for the next generation of web delivered content. Sun recently released a JavaFX Preview designed to help early adopters become familiar with JavaFX. Got a question about the JavaFX Preview? Post it during this session and get answers from three key members of Sun's JavaFX engineering team: Josh Marinacci, Martin Brehovsky, and Larry McDonough."

The UISpec4j project offers a functional/unit testing library for Swing-based applications. "UISpec4J was conceived in an Extreme Programming environment, where automated testing takes a central place. The existing Swing-based testing frameworks did expose too much of the Swing APIs, resulting in arcane and unmaintainable test classes. This is why we decided to implement a set of wrappers, trying to make our tests as close as possible to human-readable text.

Our ultimate goal is to allow tests written with UISpec4J to become the actual detailed specification of an application."

Java Native Access (JNA) provides Java programs easy access to native shared libraries (DLLs on Windows) without writing anything but Java code--no JNI or native code is required. This functionality is comparable to Windows' Platform/Invoke and Python's ctypes. Access is dynamic at runtime without code generation. JNA's design aims to provide native access in a natural way with a minimum of effort. No boilerplate or generated code is required. While some attention is paid to performance, correctness and ease of use take priority.

This week's Ask the Experts session is on Java SE 6 Update 10. "Java SE 6 Update 10, currently available as a beta release, introduces many new features and enhancements that dramatically improve the developer and user experience. Some of the significant improvements in Java SE 6 result in faster and easier deployment of Java applications and applets, better performance, and an improved look and feel. Got a question about Java SE 6 Update 10? Post it during this session and get answers from three key members of Sun's Java SE Platform team: Danny Coward, Ken Russell, and Richard Bair."

BTrace is a safe, dynamic tracing tool for the Java platform. BTrace can be used to dynamically trace a running
Java program (similar to DTrace for OpenSolaris applications and OS). BTrace dynamically instruments the classes of the target application to inject tracing code
("bytecode tracing"). Tracing code is expressed in Java programming language. There is also integration with
DTrace for the OpenSolaris platform. There will be a VisualVM plugin
for BTrace soon - so that the users can trace their application from the VisualVM client. Alternatively, if you'd prefer you can run BTrace from command line shells as well. BTrace is available under GNU Public License v.2 w/Classpath Exception.

One of the most talked-about introductions at JavaOne 2008, the Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) makes it very easy to create compelling UI's that will look and behave the same on all devices using a programming paradigm similar to Swing. It supports platform look-and-feels and themes, touch screen functionality, animation and transitions, rich widgets, 3D integration, painters, and more. The project already has a wealth of information available, including a tutorial, developer's guide (PDF), javadocs, and a wiki. You can also learn more in episode 46 of the Java Mobility Podcast.

Part of both the JavaFX and SwingLabs communities, Project Scene Graph provides the scene graph -- a hierarchical representation of objects in a scene -- called for by JavaFX Script, allowing for its use by general Swing applications as well. The project's latest release is version 0.6, which adds some APIs, fixes bugs, and adds a number of new visual effects.

The Da Vinci Machine Project is "extending the JVM with first-class architectural support for languages other than Java, especially dynamic languages. This project will prototype a number of extensions to the JVM, so that it can run non-Java languages efficiently, with a performance level comparable to that of Java itself." The group is hosting a JVM Language Summit on the Sun Microsystem Santa Clara campus, September 24-26, an "open technical collaboration among language designers, compiler writers, tool builders, runtime engineers, and VM architects."

One of the significant new features added to NetBeans IDE 6 is support for JRuby. With this support, Ruby developers can take advantage of NetBeans IDE features such as code completion and the debugger to develop and maintain their Ruby code. Got a question about the JRuby support in the NetBeans IDE? Post it during this week's Ask the Experts session and get answers from three experts: Tor Norbye, Charles Oliver Nutter, and Brian Leonard.

GlassFish's Project SocialSite is delivering social networking functionality by adding social networking platform support based on the OpenSocial standard to any community site. Any social application written for the OpenSocial based social network can be seamlessly and easily hosted on a transformed community site that is powered by the SocialSite project. Project SocialSite adds social networking functionality to applications written in Java, PHP, or Ruby; with widgets, and REST APIs. SocialSite also seamlessly scales up to millions of users

JavaOne 2008 begins next week, and as always, java.net will be a big part of the event, as captured by our JavaOne wiki page. On Saturday, May 3, we're holding a Community Leaders Weekend, an unconference in which community leaders can discuss the online community and help shape the future of the site. Then, of course, the Community Corner on the Pavilion floor will be your place to meet up with fellow community members, see demos, and check out 20-minute mini-talks from java.net project owners and community members. The mini-talks will be recorded as podcasts, sent out during and after the show; you can subscribe to the feed at the podcast's home page, or via the iTunes link. Finally, if you're presenting a technical session, hands-on session, or BoF based on your java.net project, please be sure to add it to the list of java.net sessions on the wiki.

Collabnet's tutorial and Q&A for new java.net project owners, held on April 24, is now available as an WebEx recording. To learn more about setting up and managing java.net projects (including branding of left nav, project membership, roles and permissions, setting up mailing lists, etc.), check out the stream or download the entire session.

Collabnet is hosting a tutorial and Q&A for new java.net project owners, Thursday, April 24 at 8:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (15:00 GMT). You can join the online meeting with WebEx, or just the teleconference by phone. Check out the info page for specific instructions, technical requirements, and assistance.

Are you a college student? Interested in Java? Want to get into JavaOne for free? The JavaOne 2008 Student Program, hosted by Sun's Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos, is a five-day program to attend the CommunityOne and JavaOne conferences in San Francisco, May 5 - 9, 2008. Participants will have full access to the conference, including general sessions, technical sessions, birds-of-a-feather sessions (BoFs), specially developed Java University classes, a coupon for a free Java Certification Class, access to the JavaOne pavilion (come see us at the java.net Community Corner), t-shirts, lunches, the AfterDark party with Smashmouth, and more. Space for this program is limited, so interested students should download the registration PDF right away.

With the next version of the NetBeans IDE just around the corner, the community is hosting a NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta Blogging Contest. Blog about NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta for 10 chances to win a $500 American Express Gift Certificate or 100 chances to win a cool NetBeans T-Shirt. To enter, post a blog describing your experience
using the new NetBeans IDE 6.1, a tutorial, insight, tech tip, cool
code sample, request for enhancements, etc. Your blog must be linked
to a comment or trackback made to the NetBeans Blogging Contest site.
Entries must be new material and not copied from
something already written. Complete the
href="http://www.netbeans.org/competition/blog-contest-form.html"
target="_blank">submission
form, or see the contest page for an e-mail link. The conest ends April 18.

The java.net Community Corner at JavaOne 2008 will be your place to meet up with fellow project members and community leaders, and attend 20-minute mini-talks from fellow java.net members. Sign-ups for the mini-talks are still available, so post an abstract and you can show off your project in the booth (and to the audience of java.net podcast listeners). You can also introduce your project by means of a poster, or by scheduling a time to meet the community.